7 Costly Website Mistakes You’re Making

Costly website mistakes may be limiting the effectiveness of your business website, which should legitimize your company, help people find you online, and market your products and services. But when you get to the core of your website’s purpose, it really does one primary thing.

Your business website helps you make money.

Your website should attract audiences, collect leads, convert prospects, and generate sales. But, it can’t do any of those things if you are making these costly website mistakes.

#1) Your Website Is Not Mobile-Friendly

More and more web audiences are stepping away from their computers and using mobile devices as their primary tool for browsing the web. If your website isn’t optimized for those audiences, you could be pushing away a lot of potential customers. You must use a responsive, mobile-friendly website design (that adjusts to fit the user’s screen size) if you want to appeal to all potential customers online, not just the ones using desktop browsers.

#2) Your Content Is Shallow (or Non-Existent)

Many businesses think that just having a website is enough. They launch a homepage and few pages of content and believe their website will start working for them. But, this is one of the most costly website mistakes. Potential customers visit your website to learn about your brand, products, and services. If you don’t offer detailed content that helps them find the information they seek, they are probably going to leave your website without coming closer to doing business with you.

#3) You Don’t Tell Audiences What to Do

Your website’s purpose is to drive sales. For it to do that, it must act like a salesperson. It must guide users from interest to conversion by using persuasive and direct language. Each of your webpages should use clear call-to-actions that tell audiences what to do. It should lead them through the buyer’s journey by offering directions to the next phrase. If you fail to include directions on each page, you are making costly website mistakes because you risk losing audiences and potential sales.

#4) You Don’t Have a Lead Magnet

Because your website is an unpaid, 24/7 salesperson, it should always be working for your business. One way it can do that is by constantly collecting contact information from your audience. Your website should have an engaging lead magnet that encourages audiences to provide their contact information in exchange for something valuable from your business. If you aren’t using your website as a way to collect leads and trigger email marketing sales funnels, it’s a costly website mistake. You could be wasting your web traffic and missing out on sales opportunities.

#5) You Aren’t Retargeting Website Visitors

If a user visits your website and leaves without becoming a lead or paying customer, all is not lost. You can use their website visit as a door for connecting with the audience again on another platform. By adding retargeting codes from Facebook and Google, you can tag users who visit your website and create ads that reconnect with them on other websites. This allows you to leverage connections with users who have already shown interest in your business.

#6) Your Checkout Page Doesn’t Look Secure

If a user is ready to make an online purchase, there is a website mistake that could stop them. If your website’s checkout page doesn’t look secure, you can scare off users even if they really want to make a purchase. Stop users from abandoning their cart by using security features like an SSL certificate and trust and security badges.

#7) You’re Driving Paid Traffic to Generic Pages

The most costly website mistakes are actively funneling money into strategies that won’t produce ideal results. If you’re paying for traffic through sponsored social posts or search engine marketing but driving audiences to generic web pages, you could be wasting your money in this way. Instead of driving users to basic info pages, drive traffic to landing pages that are created specifically for the ad you created and the audience you targeted. Drive paid traffic to hyper-targeted pages to increase your conversions.

Stop Making Costly Website Mistakes

Your website’s core purpose is to help you initiate sales and make more money. But, it can’t do that if you are making these costly website mistakes.

To see even more ways that you could be losing money by sending users off your site without converting them into customers, check out our post How to Lower Your Website’s Bounce Rate. It offers tips for lowering the bounce rate on your website so you can keep users on the page and on their way to becoming paying customers.